Get it Together, Already!: September Fireplace

The fall cleaning schedule had the great room listed as the room to clean and organize last week. I got in and worked hard on Tuesday to get that room clean. Mine is rather large, encompassing 2 halls, the entry area, the formal dinning room, the living room, and the breakfast area. The ceiling has several different heights, 9 ft, 10 ft and 12 ft. There are a total of 12 windows and all the floors are hardwood. By the end of the day my right arm and lower back were terribly sore but my great room was sparkling!

I work from the top to the bottom of a room. So, for most of the room, my swiffer duster works well to reach all the ceiling corners but when I come to the entry area and the 12 ft ceilings not so much. In the past I have gotten a ladder inched my way around the entry but I wanted to work faster this time so I created a new tool. I taped a feather duster to the end of an old swiffer sweeper and taa daa . . . a very long duster!

With this, I was able to reach the 12 ft ceiling without a ladder. It was helpful with the 10 ft ceilings as well. No more tippy toes. Woo Hoo! And at the end of the day I ripped off the tape and it can all be used for what it was originally designed for.

But, I digress, My New Favorite Tool is not the title of this blog entry September Fireplace is. Decorating
my fireplace mantle is something I really struggle with. I do OK with it at Halloween and Christmas but the rest of the year it looks rather odd or its completely bare. Here is what it has looked like all summer.

I don't know what to do with the TV up there. I like the TV in that location and we used it every day so I don't want to cover it up in any way but how do I decorate around it?

I came across this school subway art before school started.

Thanks, Melissa. You should defiantly check out her blog here.

I have used subway art before up there so I thought I would try that again. But one lone piece of subway art was gonna look kinda odd so what else could I do? And then I remembered. My cousin Cathy and her family visited this summer and while she was here she ask if I still had that old school slate with the handle. She said she had looked and looked for one but had never seen another one like it. Hmm... I could create a display on my mantle with all my old school antiques for the month of September and then do Halloween stuff for October and so on and so forth. I haven't found a place in our new home to put all that stuff and it was just wasting away in a box in the basement. I should get it out and at least display it one month out of the year. So here it is my September Fireplace.